Lewis Hamilton continued his dominance in the 2015 Formula One season after taking pole position in the Italian Grand Prix. With a timing of 1m 23.397s, Hamilton was the fastest, which also meant it was his seventh consecutive pole of the season.
But Mercedes could not finish with one-two in the grid as Hamilton's team mate Nico Rosberg finished fourth. However, it was Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, who will be staring from second and third position of the grid as they finished with timings of 1m 23.631s and 1m 23.685s respectively.
Ferrari were relatively surprised with the performance of their car in the Italian Grand Prix, which is also a home race for the team. Their car has let the team down in some races during the season. Former world champion Raikkonen wants to come up with a better performance on Sunday.
"Yeah, I think if we look now we probably surprised ourselves a little bit. We expected a strong weekend but we knew that this place is not our strongest probably, so in the end the car turned out to be pretty good in qualifying conditions; we had many good laps," said Raikkonen.
"It's been a while, so it's nice to be here, especially [at] the home race for us. It's probably our best qualifying this year as a team. We try to give [it] another good go tomorrow and give a good result, not just for ourselves but for our fans and all the Ferrari people behind us."
With Mercedes and Ferrari drivers, who will be well supported by the home fans, occupying the top four positions for race day, an interesting Sunday looms large.
Can Raikkonen win his first race of the season? Hamilton is aware of the tough task ahead of him to win his seventh race of the season.
"Well, I mean pole is... it's always a great feeling getting pole, as Sebastian knows, and it's the same with Kimi. I think I've had a couple of poles here, but not always... I think last year was not such an easy getaway but it didn't t mean I could not win the race. There's a long way down to turn one, these guys are good off the line, so we'll try to do our best tomorrow but, yes, our race pace has tended to be quite strong. I hope we see that tomorrow. I don't mean to take away Sebastian's dreams but I have dreams also!" said Hamilton.
Among other racers, Force India's Serio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg, who were impressive in the practice sessions, will start the race in seventh and ninth positions respectively and they will be eager to collect some points in the Italian Grand Prix as well.
Meanwhile, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were decent with timings of 1m 23.940s and 1m 24.127s respectively.
Where to Watch Live
The Italian Grand Prix race is scheduled for 2 pm local time (5.30 pm IST, 1 pm BST, 8 am ET).
Live Streaming and TV Information for the Italian Grand Prix raceday.
Country | TV Broadcaster |
India | Star Sports 4, Star Sports HD4 |
US | NBC |
Canada | TSN |
United Kingdom | BBC, Sky Sports |
Middle East and North Africa | Bein Sports Arabia |
Australia | Network Ten |
Germany, Italy | Sky Sport |
France | Canal+ |
Asia | Fox Sports |
Country | Online links |
India | Star Sports Online |
US | NBC Sports Online |
UK | Watch Sky Sports |
Middle East | BeIN Sports Connect |
Asia | Fox Sports Online |
Italy | Sky Go Italy |
Germany | Sky Go Germany |